Ghostcrawler's Cataclysm Post Mortem

Not sure if you all got a chance to see it...

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/4519250/Cataclysm_Post_Mortem_--_Greg_%E2%80%9CGhostcrawler%E2%80%9D_Street-3_7_2012

Personally, I liked just about everything that Ghostcrawler had to say here. Personally, I love the fact that they recognized the issues associated with this:

In addition, while we liked that each zone has a story, questing ended up being too linear. It didn’t feel like you could fly into a zone, find some quest givers, and explore. Instead, you kind of had to start at the beginning and follow all the quests to the end, and if you didn’t like a quest, well, you had to stick with it to get to the next one. We want zones to have an identity, flavor and a story, but we don’t want to railroad players through a zone either.

Lets hope that we're able to finally progress past those incredibly annoying "Go collect 10 of xyz that have a 5% drop rate from those mobs over there" quests, which are annoying while single-boxing and rage-inducing as a multiboxer.

I'm still parsing my way through it, but I'm still liking what I'm reading. Any further thoughts on the content here?

I almost wish they'd stop this game here and just make WoW2.

I've actually been very impressed with his communications skills lately. I think he must have hired a journalism intern or something to help him.

I read acknowledgement of a few problems, which was nice:

• railroaded questing (actually got this one spot on, IMO)
• lack of options for gear progression (right but for the wrong reasons; see below)
• lame talent rework

I also read what seems to be a disappointing misunderstanding of why certain things were disliked:

• The Justice / Honor badge system in Cataclysm cleaned up the crazy system from Lich King. Uh, everyone I talked to loved the badge gear availability in WotLK and disliked having to grind the more difficult heroics in Cataclysm or LFR to progress. I suspect his characterization of this as awesomesauce had more to do with Squeaky Wheel Syndrome combined with "cleaned up" meaning "easier for limited devs to maintain." Granted, LFR was pretty universally liked but that did NOT resolve the complaints about the changes to the badge gear system.
• Heroic "difficulty" changes != more challenge. From everything I read and experienced, this "challenge" was primarily just them adding gratuitous amounts of AoE stuff you don't want to stand in. That didn't feel like challenge to me -- just abuse. I'm sure 5 individuals probably didn't notice it as much but as a boxer I sure did.

But what do I know -- I'm just an armchair wow design guru.

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Originally Posted by JohnGabriel

I almost wish they'd stop this game here and just make WoW2.

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They could make a wow2, but if they didn't continue the existing wow, I don't see it going too far.

Basically, they would be saying everything you did up to now counts for nothing.
And "x" years from now, we'll make a wow3 and discontinue wow2... meaning everything you did in wow2 was also a waste of time.




Ignoring that playing a game doesn't really get you much outside of the game, and enjoyment of the game is the only real purpose...
IE, playing wow or watching tv or reading a book are equal wastes/good uses of time.

The continuity of the game, or the improvement of your character over time.
The gaining of achievements, titles, or just beating encounters that were too hard at one point but doable later.
That's the benefit of the game.
Over time those add up.

Canceling the game, say its over and you won or lost, that defeats the whole purpose of an ongoing RPG.




I'm not saying make wow2 is a good idea or a bad idea.
Just that canceling wow1 would likely kill wow2 before it started.

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

They could make a wow2, but if they didn't continue the existing wow, I don't see it going too far.

Basically, they would be saying everything you did up to now counts for nothing.
And "x" years from now, we'll make a wow3 and discontinue wow2... meaning everything you did in wow2 was also a waste of time.




Ignoring that playing a game doesn't really get you much outside of the game, and enjoyment of the game is the only real purpose...
IE, playing wow or watching tv or reading a book are equal wastes/good uses of time.

The continuity of the game, or the improvement of your character over time.
The gaining of achievements, titles, or just beating encounters that were too hard at one point but doable later.
That's the benefit of the game.
Over time those add up.

Canceling the game, say its over and you won or lost, that defeats the whole purpose of an ongoing RPG.




I'm not saying make wow2 is a good idea or a bad idea.
Just that canceling wow1 would likely kill wow2 before it started.

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I don't even know what WoW 2 would mean, but I agree that they can't just launch a new game, call it WoW 2, and end this one.

And I don't even know what the benefit to a WoW 2 that was independent of WoW 1 would be - a better engine, graphics updates, cleaning up old messes, adding new features are all things they have done to the original WoW over time, so why not just keep going that route? If they wanted to start completely from scratch with the engine/client/server they could do it behind the scenes and then just roll people to it as part of an expansion or something.

With non-persistent world games sequels make sense, but with MMOs they don't make as much sense when incremental upgrades over time essentially yield an entirely different game.

This game will be here many years from now. Look at EQ1 its still going strong,,started in 1999?

excellent summary of the issues in cata - I strongly agree on

- lack of travel and people in non capitals
- linear quests (the key reason I only boost)
- scattered zones


Also a key issue I see are flying mounts. Get rid of them in my opinion, the game was far more interesting before.

Wow2 would be a serious challenge if wow1 was switched off. The only way they could successfully transfer everyone across is by doing the old wizardry thing and import your characters over (not necessarily by floppy disk). IT would be better to continue the evolution of WoW graphically, and they also may want to upgrade the entire combat system (as it is getting old).

Personally I want more customisation, many more choices in the style of combat my team can play - when they railroaded the talent trees, it was indeed a sad day as there was no more SL/SL locks for example.

What I would like to see is an expansion the size of azeroth. If content is the priority, I would like to see a significant growth in land space.

And more elite mobs in outdoor world. I feel normal outdoor questing is just too too easy.

and I'd like free transfers, paid RAF, a cake (chocolate preferably) and a new job.

Brand new code, rather than adapting existing code... which doesn't always work as easily as you'd like...

Adding the features you like.
Removing the features you dislike.

Trying something new, that is an innovation which none of your competitors offer...

There is definitely something to be said for a new version of the same game.
Or for a totally different game, but still the same genre (MMORPG), by the same company.

Blizzard would have to seriously alienate their current player base in general (it was several years of progressively worsening customer support in EQ1 that caused me to switch to Wow).
Or decide boxing was no longer allowed.
To get me to look at another game; sure I take breaks, as long as half a year at times, but I've always returned to wow.

Something about having the same character for 6 years and it will never be completely worthless is why i like this game. Yes you level, but you are never really starting at zero (this is different for boxing, but the ideology is there still)

It's all about investments. Yes we dislike a lot of things, but we invest time in this game, and essentially it becomes ours in a way.

If they want a new engine they need to port the whole game over to the new engine, keeping existing zones, art and characters. EQ2 was not the sucess that new graphics and new engine was hoping for. Anything else is just a loss for them. Or just have the new engine in the new expansion zones only.... They are doing it right, they were able to learn from every error EQ made.

From a success standpoint EQ2 was a collossal pile of shit, combination of people sick of EQ's fuck you to the players attitude, an unwanted sequel, and WoW dropping all at the same time made alot of people abandon eq1 and not many made it to eq2, they came to wow instead, myself included. Of course they ended up still supporting eq, but none of us knew that at the time.

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Originally Posted by Sam DeathWalker

If they want a new engine they need to port the whole game over to the new engine, keeping existing zones, art and characters. EQ2 was not the sucess that new graphics and new engine was hoping for. Anything else is just a loss for them. Or just have the new engine in the new expansion zones only.... They are doing it right, they were able to learn from every error EQ made.

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Ualaa, this is what I was getting at when I said what would be the point of WoW 2 - Sam's got it exactly. They could completely re-write the code-base and do their best to import everything into the new engine without having to actually launch it as a separate game, allowing there to be at least some decent level of continuity while also getting the benefits of a "cleaner" codebase that doesn't need to support as much crazy legacy cruft.

I get the benefits from the back-end of things, but what I'm asking about is what would be the benefit of an entirely new game without any carryover from WoW 1 that *couldn't* be gained by just completely rebuilding the server & client applications and then modifying and importing everything into the new engine. How do you market it to people? I mean, starting entirely from scratch seems like it would have a very, very narrow appeal, and could just as easily be accomplished by making a few realms on the new system (if they even had discrete realms instead of a different way of handling things) that would only be for new characters and would never allow inbound transfers.

I guess it just seems to me like the way for them to have their cake and eat it to would be to make the new system and then make it a big old exciting launch to switch over to it (like Cataclysm, but uh, competently executed and obviously more extensive) - that way they get the new people for a "new" game, get to keep the old people who want to play the same characters, and they could even leave a few legacy realms around for people who want to continue playing the original engine, kind of like how EQ1 was handled, though without new content ever being added to the old system - just freeze it in place.

I know we all love our own genres, But I really hope this new Titan Project, is sci-fi or steampunk. Heck I would even settle for something like the old Shadowrun PnP games, or the old old old Genesis game.

Stephen

just please no more zombie crap!

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Originally Posted by Kojii

just please no more zombie crap!

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No more zombie *crap* yes - but a really well done zombie MMO that captured the hopelessness, anxiety and absolute desperation of humans vs. zombies would be an amazing game to play.

Pokemon MMO, oh god please!!

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Originally Posted by valkry

Pokemon MMO, oh god please!!

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Isn't that basically the pet battle system for Pandas?

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Originally Posted by valkry

Pokemon MMO, oh god please!!

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There is many good pokemon MMO's on the net. From a battling/trading sense retail pokemon is a mmorpg to. Only problem is hacking yourself a perfect pokemon takes a high school education and 5 minutes.

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Originally Posted by kate

No more zombie *crap* yes - but a really well done zombie MMO that captured the hopelessness, anxiety and absolute desperation of humans vs. zombies would be an amazing game to play.

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You don't understand... many of us think that anything to do with zombies is boring crap.

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Originally Posted by luxlunae

You don't understand... many of us think that anything to do with zombies is boring crap.

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Zombies are great....when you play 5 pallies.

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Originally Posted by luxlunae

You don't understand... many of us think that anything to do with zombies is boring crap.

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I understand, I just have a different opinion. Crappy zombie stuff is crap. But if it is done very well it can be quite good, even if there is a ton of garbage out there. For example, the existence of Mansquito and other horrible schlock out there in the "humans getting turned into insects" genre doesn't make Kafka's Metamorphosis suddenly crap.

Subject matter has gone slightly off the ghostcrawler track but...as for wow2 or a new game..

2007: First rumors

In 2007, users on a Blizzard internet forum speculated that the game was in development after the company published job listings for character and environment artists to work on a "Next-Gen MMO" that was "Top Secret." A Blizzard community representative confirmed that the postings were for an unannounced game that was not an expansion for world of warcraft activision blizzard CEO bobby kotick said at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference that the new game would not be a competitor or clone of World of Warcraft. Chief Operating Officer paul sams expanded on the limited information in 2008 when he told videogaming247.com that Blizzard's next-generation MMO would be "something that's cool, and new, and different" as well as a "challenging endeavour. CEO mike morhaime confirmed that it was a new game and not a sequel to any existing franchises in a 2008 interview with wired magazine.

2010: "Titan" title leak & developer recruitment

A confidential project schedule was released without the company's consent in November 2010. It showed a project titled "Titan" with a release date in the fourth quarter of 2013. Blizzard China's general manager either resigned or was terminated after the leak. At the 2010 ,spike video game awards Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce told gaming blog destructoid that the studio had begun talking about the title as a recruitment tool. He said: "It's our next-gen MMO, and we've only started talking about it in a limited fashion because we want to leverage the fact that we're working on something like that for the purpose of recruiting--getting some of the best talent in the industry on that."

2011: More details & full production

CEO Morhaime spoke of the game in broad terms during a panel discussion at the 2011 .D.I.C.E. summit He said that the company had its most experienced MMO developers working on the project. He explained that they were using lessons from the years of working on World of Warcraft, and he also emphasized the significance of players gaming with people they know as opposed to strangers. Morhaime believes that World of Warcraft and Titan, upon its release, will be able to co-exist on the market.

2012: Speculation & Details

In an interview with Gamsutra in March 2011, COO Sams, revealed that the game was playable and laid out a vision for the project to "still be growing strong" in 10, 15 or 20 years, having "set a new mark in the industry."

An article in Venturebeat suggested that the game might be discussed at blizzcon in October 2011. The rumor was quashed by a Blizzard representative. However, towards the end of the event, rob pardo did give a short status update on how the development is going, stating that there were 90 developers on the project, with it being close to entering into full production mode, expected to commence in 2012.

EDIT: just on a personal note,could the fact that it was discussed at the 2011 DICE summit,mean the use of an adapted frostbite engine?..it is a great engine graphics wise,but how it would adapt to an mmo would probably be in lower detail,and could this also mean an mmo with realtime combat?...just my thoughts,proabably no link between dice and blizzard anyway..but i suppose we shall just have to wait and see :)

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Originally Posted by honeypot2011

In 2007, users on a Blizzard internet forum speculated that the game was in development after the company published job listings for character and environment artists to work on a "Next-Gen MMO" that was "Top Secret."

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It's been common practice for over a decade that job listings are part of the communication & marketing strategy of companies, definitely in IT. And it goes as far as fake job listings describing some incredible jobs that should sustain the imagine of a sexy high tech environment, even within major companies. Terms as 'secret' & 'next gen' are pretty easy to cover up for. They get a pool of high profile candidates they can use for later recruitment needs. Not saying this is what blizz is doing, but it's worth taking into account.

Next xpac for wow will be to do with the burning legion again and probably more interaction against Titans (Sargeras). This "ending" to wow will blend with the "beginning" of Titan.

In before completely unrealistic, highly unlikely and blizzard will never merge stories of seperate MMOs... I know.

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Originally Posted by valkry

In before completely unrealistic, highly unlikely and blizzard will never merge stories of seperate MMOs... I know.

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lol...low-hanging fruit and all that.

Who expected space goats?
Who expected paladins to become rogues?
Who expected hunters to have no dead zone?
etc.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

lol...low-hanging fruit and all that.

Who expected space goats?
Who expected paladins to become rogues?
Who expected hunters to have no dead zone?
etc.

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Watch the whole vid. Pally uses potion of invis while in rogue gear, ganks people outside orgrimmar after duels then uses gnomish cloaking device to "vanish"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPX30-TksE0&feature=gv

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Originally Posted by valkry

Watch the whole vid. Pally uses potion of invis while in rogue gear, ganks people outside orgrimmar after duels then uses gnomish cloaking device to "vanish"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPX30-TksE0&feature=gv

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*chokes on rum & coke* :D Thanks much for that link. I haven't laughed that hard in days.